Ph.D. Proposal Defense by Michael Battaglia Jr.
Location
Technology Research Center (TRC) : 206
Date & Time
March 30, 2017, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Description
Ph.D. Proposal Defense by Michael Battaglia Jr.
Thursday, March 30, 2017, 1-3 pm; TRC 206
Faculty and Students and invited to the open part of the defense.
Title: Development, Validation, and Field Deployment of New Technologies for the Measurement of Aerosol pH
Abstract: Aerosol pH is a poorly-constrained but critically-important parameter of aerosols, affecting atmospheric chemistry, and both human and environmental health. Atmospheric ammonia gas is the primary basic gas in the atmosphere, with sources of atmospheric aerosol differing greatly between the rural and urban environments. As there exist spectroscopic methods to simultaneously measure the ammonia/ammonium concentrations in air and seawater samples, and because ammonia gas-particle phase partitioning is explicitly determined by the pH, this method of measurement is promising in the development of an instrument currently missing in the toolbox of atmospheric scientists and aerosol researchers. The goal of the proposed research is to justify, then carry out, the development and deployment of a new device for the on-line, continuous quantification of aerosol pH. This work will address three specific research objectives: 1) Investigate how the urban heat island (urban/rural temperature difference) affects aerosol pH; 2) Develop an instrument for the continuous, on-line quantification of aerosol pH by UV-vis spectroscopy; and 3) Investigate how aerosol pH varies in environments with primarily agricultural, or primarily anthropogenic and chemical transport sources, of ammonia gas through deployment of the developed instrument.